10-day cleanse update

I've spent the last 10 days eating vegan and gluten-free. Only 4 days to go, including today. Breakfast smoothie? Check!

I have to say it's been pretty tough, but not as hard as I thought it would be. The first 3 or 4 days were the worst. I had lunch with a customer and of course he picked an italian place with the best rolls ever, then ordered stuffed mushrooms in a cream sauce and used a roll to sop up the sauce. I sat there with my plain salad and vinegar/oil dressing hating life.

Roasted vegetables are my new best friend, particularly some garlic-roasted brussels sprouts. I can eat a whole plate of roasted vegetables with only olive oil and a little salt/pepper and feel completely satisfied. I'm also loving lemon water, which I used to really dislike. I also found that I do like walnuts in a salad, and I do like grapefruit in a salad. I learned that I do like salad sometimes. I learned to make homemade risotto.

Restaurants are the hardest. Just last night, I had dinner with a friend at Blue Mesa. Their vegan options are almost nil. I think every single dish except the one I ordered had meat and/or cheese with it. I swapped some black bean soup for some thing on the veggie platter and had a great meal, with some leftover for lunch today. The best part of this cleanse is I don't feel hungry or deprived.

Except when it comes to chocolate. I think about it all the time. Brownies. Chocolate icecream. Chocolate chips. Nutella. It's really a problem!

Also Thursdays and Fridays are hard, particularly in a restaurant with fun cocktails. But I'm learning that having a cocktail is not the reason it's fun, it only adds to the fun. Being able to routinely skip a fun drink has been a good experience for me.

To top it off, I've lost 5 pounds. That's quite a bit for me. I'm now comfortably close to my college weight, the bloating I didn't know I had is gone, and I feel really good.

Valentine's Day I get to add champagne and chocolate back to my diet, and I'm looking forward to it! Moving forward, I see myself paying attention to how food makes me feel. Those nights pigging out on 'delicious' mexican food and margaritas may just be replaced by a few bites of the good stuff, just enough to be satisfied. I don't see myself stuffing my face to feel good, because I feel so much better when I don't.